Plane Food Review (continued)

Apologies for not finishing up my review of Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food. I was so excited about Berlin and the Obama speech that I decided it could wait so better late than never.

Some people, perhaps most, find Gordon Ramsay to be obnoxious, arrogant, and downright mean. They view him as just another member of the celebrity chef epidemic that has hit our TV channels, magazine racks, and radio waves in recent years. The whole concept of celebrity chefs is a topic that deserves a blog post of its own so I won't go much more into detail about my feelings on the subject here. All I'll say is that I do believe the Mario Batalis, Alice Waters, Anthony Bourdains, even Gordon Ramsays and Marco Pierre Whites of celebrity chef fame have a place in our gastronomic world. Seriously, where would our (mostly meaning Americans) palates be today without Julia Child or M.F.K. Fisher?

Gordon Ramsay - Plane Food

Now back to Plane Food. When I last left you readers I had missed my flight due to silly non-negotiable rules at Heathrow's T5. I wasn't really in the mood for retail therapy so decided this was the perfect chance to try out Plane Food. I wanted to eat there before but really, who wants to come to the airport an extra hour or so early just to eat at a new restaurant? Plane Food keeps in line with the entire T5 concept. The theme here is to offer passengers a swanky, sophisticated, upscale, and glamorous travel experience. As though you would expect Ingrid Bergman decked out in tailored gloves, matching clutch, a wide-brimmed hat strategically covering one eye and her impeccable locks to turn the corner with her porter carrying exotic crocodile skinned luggage behind her. I would say the architects and decorators delivered on this promise but perhaps not the chefs.

The food is supposed to be typical Ramsay style of traditional British fare at its best but he'll have to explain to me someday how croque madame and salmon ceviche are traditional British. To ensure its success, Ramsay brought in Stuart Gillies from his Boxwood Cafe property to run the kitchen. When the manager informed me of this I should have known what to expect from the food right then and there. I've only been to Boxwood Cafe once, but my opinion of it was good, not great, and definitely not worth the price. Plane Food was no different. I started with a small portion of the English beetroot salad including Fourme d’Ambert cheese, hazelnuts and green beans (£8). If you've ever watched an episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, you'll know that this simple crowd-pleaser is something he tends to feature on menus. It was just that, simple and pleasing. I followed this with a small portion of the celeriac risotto with peas, pine nuts and lemon (£8). This was much more impressive than my starter and brought the meal back up to a nearly inspiring point. The celeriac was blended through the sauce along with perfectly cooked chunks mixed into the rice. The English peas were extremely bright and fresh and popped when I bit down. The rice itself also had the perfect texture for risotto, smooth and creamy with just a little bite and pine nuts to add that final crunch. Finally the sprinkling of lemon zest really made this dish bright and fresh. I really lingered over this plate. I almost passed on dessert but finished with the special dessert of the day since I figured it was the least I deserved for my troubles. And it was the special so how could I resist? The macerated strawberries with mint on a meringue with clotted cream (£6) was again another excellent example of great texture in a dish with the soft sweet strawberries on the crunchy meringue. I was worried the clotted cream would be too heavy but the overall combination of flavors and textures blended very well into a dessert that was refreshing, not too sweet, and just enough to be satisfying and not sickening.

I do applaud Ramsay (and Stuart Gillies) for staying true to his belief in fresh high-quality ingredients, although several items definitely were not sourced locally (e.g. San Daniele prosciutto). The food is solid and tasty. As I alluded to previously, the overall experience was pleasing but not impressive especially for the price (particularly since I wasn't expensing this). If you've missed your flight and have some time to kill by treating yourself to a nice meal, then I would give Plane Food a try. For myself, I will likely be sticking to the free food, alcohol, and wifi in the T5 British Airways lounge.

The Damage

1 small bottle sparking water £1.85
1 glass Albarino wine £7.00
beetroot salad £8.00 (small)
celeriac risotto £8.00 (small)
strawberry/meringue dessert £6.00

12.5% service charge £3.86

Total = £34.71

Overall rating:



2.5 (out of 5 tube stops)

Ambience: According to the website, the architects "have crafted aerodynamic lines to conjure up shapes associated with flying". My take was that it's a beautiful, open, and bright space perfect for watching the world (or planes) go by. The decor was a throwback to the art deco style of the 1920's and 1930's where inspiration came from "modern" aviation. This period is also referred to as the golden age of flight (for the western world).

Drinks: I struggled with the wines by the glass list and ended up with an innocuous Spanish Albarino. Like the food, it went well with my meal but wasn't impressive. Sitting across from the bar I could see that they do offer an extensive list of spirits (some I've been challenged to find elsewhere in the UK) along with the somewhat short wine list.

Price range: £££ (out of ££££)

Reservations: They do offer reservations if you provide your flight number and departure time. However, the restaurant was about 20% full when I was there for lunch on a Monday and I would guess their capacity is for 50-75 persons. Also back to my previous comment, I don't know how many people would really take time out to plan and arrive at the airport extra early just to eat here.

T5 and Plane Food

In this post I'm giving you a 2 for 1 review of Heathrow's new Terminal 5 and Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food. Terminal 5 opened up in March 2008 as the new home of the British Airways airline. It was to be the gleaming new terminal with every modern advancement in airport infrastructure imagineable that would take Heathrow's capacity from 60 million passengers per year to 90 million. As you can imagine T5's opening was a complete flop with over 20,000 bags lost in the first week and British Airways delaying the move of it's long haul flights out of the terminal for months. The 20,000+ bags were eventually sent to a company in Milan for sorting and the airline posted a "we're sorry" banner on their homepage. About a month after the opening I had a flight out of T5 and actually found it to be the best airport terminal I've ever been through. Because of the delayed moves the terminal was nearly empty and it has a wide range of dining and shopping options to keep me occupied for hours. It also has, in my opinion, the nicest and most well stocked British Airways lounge in the world that includes an Elemis Day Spa. I then became a huge proponent of T5 dispelling any rumors that there were still challenges with flying out of this terminal. But yesterday T5 failed me.

Owing to a terrible accident on the motorway, I was cutting it close to making my flight to Munich. In general I'm pretty bad about getting to the airport early anyway since I feel my time is being completely wasted just sitting around. Instead of catching the 2:10pm Heathrow Express I made it onto the 2:25pm which would get me to T5 by 2:50pm for a 3:25pm flight. I got to the terminal and ran for my life with every expectation that I would get on that plane since I had 30 minutes to go. I made it all the way to security with carry-on luggage only and boarding pass in hand by 2:53pm and was hopelessly turned away. I went to the British Airways counter fully enraged and ready to make a scene when they kindly informed me that the airport requires all passengers to clear security at T5 35 minutes before their flight departure. This is due to the fact that T5 spans the length of 5 football fields so they want to make sure you have at least 35 minutes to run from one end to the other. The British Airways manager did try to hold the flight for me, however unsuccesfully, and got me on the next flight to Munich which meant I had 2 hours to kill stuck in the airport. Since they made every attempt to get me on the flight and didn't charge me for changing my flight (you never know with these people) I decided to stay calm and not go ape sh*t.

Wtih 2 hours to kill I decided what the heck, I'll go sit down for a nice meal at Gordon Ramsay's latest overt display of arrogance called Plane Food. To be continued...